CHAPTER XII.
CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF BENIN.
There is nothing that African savages dread more than shells and war-rockets, and Arabs themselves are equally demoralized by these dread missiles.
They care but little—I am talking from my own experience—for ordinary round shot, if they are any distance off, in their dhows. From the cruiser's black side they can see arise a white cloud of smoke, with a spiteful tongue of fire in the centre; in a few seconds they hear the roar of the gun, and see the shot itself.
Well, they but utter a word of prayer to Allah, and ten to one the shot goes hurtling past high overhead, or it doesn't reach, but goes ricochetting past, half a mile astern perhaps, taking leaps of fifty yards at a time, throwing a cloud of foam up from every wave it strikes, till at last it sinks down to the slime of the fathomless sea.
If a cannon ball comes near enough to dash the sea-spray inboard, the Arab captain curses the British as heartily as he prays for himself, though he keeps cracking on.
But the shells, ah! the shells, that hiss and hurtle and fly into splinters in the air above the dhow, scattering death and destruction along its decks and poop; they will not yield to prayer, and I never yet saw an Arab captain who would or could stand the brunt of three or four well-aimed ones.
If one of these shells hit a mast, even if you are unwounded, the fall of that spar is something terrorizing to look upon, with its tangled rigging as well.
It does not come down quickly; it quivers and reels uncertainly for a time, while you gaze upwards and probably utter involuntarily a helpless moan.
It is coming down on you, and how can you escape death? More quickly, more and more quickly now, it descends. Then there is a crash, smashed bulwarks, and splinters flying in all directions. But, you are safe after all!
Captain Flint and his men had a good supply of shells, and it was lucky that the guns got up in time and were not damaged, for during the march there had been many small streams to cross, in which it was difficult at times to find a ford.
What wild yelling and shouting comes from the city now! Were it a large, compact town, with high houses and towers, Flint would shell it. But it were a pity to expend a shell in knocking a few grass huts to pieces, and scaring, killing, or wounding, perhaps, only helpless women and children.
"Just one other startler, sir,—shall I?"
The tall, dark young gunner was as good a shot as ever drew lanyard, and he told a messmate before he addressed the commander that he was spoiling for a shot or two that would astonish the weak nerves of the niggers.
"Well, Mr. Gill," said Flint smiling, "just one other; but I want to spare the ammunition till we see the foe."
"Br—br—brang!" went the gun a few seconds after, and the great shell went shrieking away on its mission of death.
Louder yelling than before followed the bursting of this shell.
Still the enemy did not appear.
Some men would have stormed the town, and attempted after a rifle volley or two to take it at the bayonet's point.
But this Ju-Ju king, with his naked feet caked with the blood of the victims that he had walked among, had a force of fiendish soldiers at least ten times greater in number than Flint's sailors and the soldiers behind. With these the king over-awed the the neighbouring states, and carried fire and spear and sword into their midst if they owned not his superiority and greatness.
Two hours passed away and still they did not show face, though the blue-jackets were stamping on the ground, and itching to get at them. Waiting for a tight makes the bravest sailor or soldier nervous.
The cause of the delay was that Benin, being completely under the dominion of a set of bloodthirsty scoundrels of priests, there were fetishes or oracles to be consulted, and all kinds of mumbo-jumbo business to be gone through, before the Ju-Ju king's army could come forth. Oh, as for the king himself, his person was far too sacred to risk. The priests told him so, and he was by no means loath to believe it. Besides, he was so covered with beads from chin to ankle, that he had some difficulty in walking much.
Far better to stay in his harem, and listen to the yelling of his soldiers, the rattling of the musketry, and roar of the guns, until, as the priests assured him would be the case, the British prisoners—all that were not slain—should be brought in.
Ah! then, he said to himself, the fun would begin. He would roast some alive. "Man meat", as these cannibals call human flesh, which, by the way, is sold openly in the market-place, is ever so much more tender and juicy when cooked alive. Well, the king made up his mind to roast a few; he would torture and crucify others on trees, with widely-extended arms and legs, and wooden pegs nailed through the flesh of feet, legs, and arms to hold them up. Others, again, he would tie to stakes, where he could see them starve to death in the broiling sunshine, half-eaten alive at night by loathsome beetles and other fearful insects. All the rest he would either behead, or hand over to the women to be tied down and slowly disembowelled alive!
That was the programme.
And now it was to be carried out. So the king believed. The British tars and marines were well stationed on slightly rising ground, half-sheltered by straggling bush, and were all ready when the enemy appeared in his thousands.
Mercy on us, how they yelled, and waved aloft shield and spear or guns, as they came on like a black and awful avalanche!
They fired first, and a few of our fellows fell, but only wounded.
"Reserve your fire, lads, till they get nearer!" cried Flint, for the blood of the sailors was getting hot.
Still on came that yelling avalanche. The sailors could see their red mouths, flashing teeth, and fearful eyes, when the captain shouted:
"Aim low, lads. Fire!"
That was a splendid volley!
Its effects were startling. The enemy was packed together, and some of the British bullets must have killed or wounded two at a time. It was followed up by others quite as good, and the dark skins, kicking and squirming like wounded rats, blackened the ground as their comrades sprang past or over them.
Nor did the hissing, spluttering war-rockets, tearing through their centre, repel their determined advance.
It seemed for a time that win the battle they must, by mere force of numbers.
Their terrible yelling now increased. All savages make these sounds, which they believe paralyses the enemy. Our brave Jacks and Joes, however, don't paralyse worth a groat. They were now formed into squares for a time, which the Ju-Ju's devils could not break.
Revolvers did lovely work!
Again and again the black savages advanced, only to be hurled back.
Then they threw their spears.
This was nasty, and wounded many of the man-o'-war's men.
"Fix bayonets!" cried Flint.
The bayonets were really cutlasses, and our fellows know how to use them too.
"Charge!"
How our men cheered, as they dashed on to the work of death! A true British cheer. The king heard it and trembled.
For a time it was a hand-to-hand tussle. But look yonder, in a more open space the captain himself has fallen, and three armed savages are on him instantly; two have spears—one is about to dash Flint's brains out with the butt-end of a beggarly Brummagen gun, when in the nick of time Creggan, who is near at hand, fires, and the fellow, with arms aloft, falls dead. Then, cutlass in hand, our hero rushes at the other two, as did the wild cat at his neck on that starlit night long ago, when he was returning home with dear Matty by his side. He has cut one across the neck with terrible effect, but the very strength and impulse of the blow, somehow, makes poor Creggan stumble and fall.
Next moment savage No. 3 has a spear very near to his chest indeed.
Yes; but the captain has now sprung up,—he was merely stunned,—the spear is splintered with the first blow, the second cleaves the savage's skull through to the eyes.
"God bless you, boy," cried Flint, "for your timely aid! I'll not forget it."
And blood-dripping hands are shaken there and then.
But how goes the battle?
Ah! right bravely. You can tell that by the royal cheers of Jack and Joe.
The foe reels backwards, wavers, flies. No use for blue-jacket or marine to follow. These fiends run swift as deer!
But shells and war-rockets do dread work now, and sadly thin the ranks of those shrieking fiends.
Nor is it all over yet. For look, right in front of the defeated and fleeing army there suddenly springs, as if from the earth itself, a thin red line of British soldiers.
Rip—rip—rip go the crackling rifles all along this line. As pretty platoon firing as one could wish to see or hear.
And the effect is deadly. The black army bids fair to be wiped out. They attempt to fly to the right—to the left. But Flint has divided his little army and outflanks them on both sides. Then, cowed and appalled, those among them who are still intact throw away their arms, throw themselves on the ground, throw themselves even across the bleeding bodies of the slain, and shriek aloud for mercy. Mercy? It is never refused by British soldiers to beseeching foemen.
The carnage has been dreadful, but silence reigns now, except for the pitiful moaning of the wounded. No sound of rifle, no slash of cutlass, or hiss of flying spear!
A blue sky above, and bright sunshine, in which the woods around seem to swelter and steam. The blue above—the blood below!
Yes, readers, war may be glorious, but it is after the battle has ceased to rage that one sees Bellona[1] in all her dreadful deshabille, her blood-stained arms, her soaking hair, and cruel and fiercely flaming eyes. May heaven in its mercy keep war and famine far away from our own sweet island home!
[1] The goddess of war.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The arms were now taken from the prisoners, and they were left huddled together like an immense herd of seals, for all were lying down exhausted. Only fifty men were left to keep them together. The main little army then marched into the city.
Will it be believed that women and children rushed to meet our heroes, kneeling in the dust and weeping, embracing our blue-jackets' knees, till more than one tar was heard to remark: "I'm blessed, Bill" (or Jim as the case might be), "I'm blessed if I don't feel like blubbering my blooming self."
For the British sailor, though the bravest of the brave in battle, has ever a tender heart to a child or woman.
But there was one particular cry that rang all through this poor forlorn mob. When translated it was found to mean:
"Kill the devil—Oh, kill the devil-king!"
The awful odour of this blood-stained city cannot be described. Nor can the sights that were seen in the market-place and around the palace. The skulls set on sticks, the skeletons, the putrid bodies; the crucified men still rotting on the trees, their heads fallen down till the chins touched the breast-bone; the "man-meat" in joints left on the now deserted stalls, the joints not unlike those of black pig. But the most disgusting sight of all, perhaps, was to see naked black children squatting on the murdered dead or drumming on their chests with the bones of the skeletons. And there was, as Burns says, in his inimitable Tam o' Shanter,
"Mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'".
What a surprise his sable Majesty got when our blue-jackets, to the number of twenty, stormed his harem!
He had expected his own warriors, with British heads to set on poles, with British joints to roast for dinner, and British men to torture and burn.
Tom Sinclair, of the Rattler, a beau-ideal seaman, led the rest. His white "bags", as he called them, were red and brown with blood, and his shirt besprinkled too. But his sun-tanned face looked as jolly as if he had only just come from a ball instead of a field of carnage.
"Yambo sana!" (a Swahili salute).
"Yambo sana!" he said to the king, who was stretched on a raised, mat-covered couch. "W'y, what a luxurious old cockalorum you are, to be sure!"
Tom hitched up his trousers as he spoke, and looked pleasant.
But like fire from flint the Ju-Ju king sprang up, and attempted to knife poor Tom. And Tom with a single twist disarmed him, and next moment the king in his beads was lying on his back, the blood flowing from his nasal organ.
Tom was as calm as a judge.
"'Xcuse me, old chap," he said, "for making your morsel of a nose bleed. Would have preferred giving ye a pair of black eyes, only they wouldn't show like, your skin's so dark.
"Seems to me," he added, "yer soul's as black as yer blooming skin. Wouldn't I like to trice yer Majesty up and give ye four dozen.
"Here, interpreter," continued this tormenting Tom, "'terpret wot I says to this ere himage o' Satan. Are ye ready?"
"Tell him that we've wiped out his sodgers, and ask if he could oblige us by turning out a new army. We were only just a-settlin' down to serious fightin' when the beggars bolted.
"Told him?"
"Yes, sah. And now he groan and shake his big head plenty mooch, for true!"
"Tell him not to be afeard, that we won't scupper him (kill him) for a day or two, but that we means only to put a hook through his nose and 'ang him to a branch. Have you got a grip o' that, 'terpreter?"
"Yes, sah. And see, he shake his big head once more. Hoo, hoo! How he make me laugh!"
"Tell him that we may also build a fire under him just to keep his toes warm, 'cause it would be a terrible thing if a monarch like he was to catch his death o' cold."
The interpreter had barely finished telling the trembling king all this, when a stir in the after part of the room announced the arrival of the commanding officer, Fraser, and Captain Flint.
The sailors fixed bayonets, and drew silently up.
Then Colonel Fraser, through the interpreter, sternly ordered the king to stand up, and just as sternly addressed him. Pointing out to the assassin the enormity of all his fearful crimes, and what his punishment might be, if he, the commanding officer, cared to go to extremes. He told him much else that need not be mentioned here. But the palaver thus begun did not end for days.
The soldiers and sailors meanwhile commanded a large body of niggers to go everywhere over the town and bury every human carcase, and even every bone. The market stalls were heaped around the crucifixion trees and fired. The trees themselves burned fiercely.
The king's special murder-yard was also seen to. Then a grass and bamboo house was run up for the king in a different part of the town. To this he was escorted, laughed at and jeered by women and children, while his old blood-stained palace and everything in it was burned to the ground. Many of the adjoining huts caught fire, but the conflagration, though at night it looked very alarming, did not extend far, and was soon got under by the natives themselves throwing earth over it.
* * * * * * * * * * *
In another week's time the brave little army was once more on the march back to the river at Sapelé.
But the king had almost emptied his treasures of gold-dust to pay the demanded indemnity; he agreed also to send to New Benin much ivory, copal, nutmegs, and spices and palm-oil. A treaty was signed (it has not been kept, by the way) which bound his Majesty down to discontinue the awful human sacrifices, and to rule his subjects peacefully, on pain of another invasion by British forces, who next time, the commanding officer informed him, would hang him on the nearest tree and annex his country.
Just before the sailors and soldiers commenced their march to the river a strange and curious thing occurred.
There came emissaries from the hill tribes of the Wild West seeking an interview with Colonel Fraser.
The men, who were as wild-looking as any savages ever seen, and armed with spears and strong shields, looked nevertheless far from unpleasant.
The colonel was found after a little delay, and then the interpreter.
The first thing these strange men did was to lay their spears and their shields at the colonel's feet, then they grovelled, head down, in the dust, which, as they muttered some strange words, they mingled with their bushy heads of hair.
"Tell them to rise," said Colonel Fraser. "I cannot spare long time in ceremony."
The savage emissaries arose at once and stood before him.
"What can I do for you, my men?" said the commandant.
Their answer was so voluble that even the interpreter could not for a time understand it.